Speaker 1: Hello, friends, this is Jim Nants and I invite you
to listen to Golf Smarter with my friend Fred Green
coming your way.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 3: My name is Lisa and I'm six years old. Fred
is my grandpa. Yayo is my grandma. Mike is my dad,
and he and Grandpa played golf together. And this is
Golf Smarter number one thousand.
Speaker 1: My crazy little childhood dream that I had as a
young boy. I wanted to work for CBS. Since I was,
let's call it eleven years old. CBS broadcast the Masters,
and those voices of my youth were telling me stories
and they were educating me. And I was mesmerized by
those voices, and I wanted to be one of those
voices because it impacted me. It moved me, They informed me,
educated me, they brought the world to me. I had
this crazy idea that I wanted to work specifically for CBS.
And I also love by the way the way the
CBS broadcasts the NFL. They didn't have college basketball back
in those days. They had the NFL, they had golf,
and I just thought, I want to work for CBS.
I want to work for CBS. I went to college
saying I got to figure out a way to get
to CBS. When our legendary golf coach made us stand
up and introduce ourselves to the fellow freshmen. He said,
just stand up, tell us your name, tell us what
you want to do with your life. And I stood
first and I said, I'm Jim Nansen. I want to
work for CBS one day. I want to broadcast the
NFL and I want to broadcast the Master's Tournament.
Speaker 2: Jim nance the voice and heartbeat of the Masters in
an episode unlike any other. This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories,
tips and insights from great golf minds to help you
lower your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host,
Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Speaker 1: Jim, Hello Fred or Hello friends, however you want to
put it up. It's both are true, and I'm happy
to be here on this special special occasion with you. Fred.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much. I was wondering when I said,
when I told you say hello, Fred, I wonder how
that was going to come out.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: That was awesome. Where did hello friends come from? I mean,
every broadcaster looks for a signature line in things, and
you really have nailed it. Where did it come from?
Speaker 1: Well, I truly never wanted to have a signature line,
so that was not where I was trying to go.
It was a I've told this story many times, but
my dad suffered from Alzheimer's and it was a thirteen
year battle unwinnable. Hopefully we're on the way to changing
that for that dark world. But about halfway through his battle,
as he he was able to just cling to faint memories,
I would play all kinds of word games with him
to try to keep the engines going. Fromwhere along the line,
I said to him, Dad, when I come on the
air this weekend, I'm gonna say hello friends, and that
is a message to you to let you know I'm
thinking of you with that very time when I come
on camera, kind of like an old Carol Burnett Tug
of the Year type. And it was as simple as that.
I left his bedside in Houston, probably five minutes later.
He had already forgotten about it. Who knows. I'd like
to think there was some sort of synaps that held
on to it. But I made my way to Hazel
Team and the PGA Championship of two won by Rich
Beam and It was on the Saturday show. I said,
for the first time on the air, Hello friends, Jim
nance and do you know that? I you know, as
I look into the camera, which gives you no feedback,
you're just looking into a dark hole a lens. I
thought of him. For that flicker of a second, it
relaxed me. And after the show, a great friend of
mine who had worked with me on my book about
my father, called always by my Side, Eli Spielman. I called.
I got a call from Eli and he said, I
heard you say hello friends at the top of the broadcast.
What was that all about? I told him the backstory.
He said, that sounds like you. You ought to do
that every show, not again, trying to create anything that
would draw attention to me or a signature line. But
I have ever since, and do you know, even to
this day, all these hundreds thousands of shows later, when
I say it, it's comforting to me. My Dad's been
gone since eight fred eight. So I still though, for
that flicker of a second one I look into the
camera and say hello friends, I think of my dad,
and it's a warm feeling that overtakes me and gets
me into the flow of the show.
Speaker 2: It's like it's your first tea, you know, getting rid
of the first t jitters.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, exactly, it's exactly that same kind of thing.
And it doesn't matter how many times you've called the
super Bowl or the Masters, whatever it might be. There's
all that excitement for a live show that you've prepared
for and you kind of just want to settle into
the round, settle into the broadcast, and hello friends. Has
been that gift to me. It settles me down and
I'm on my way into the show, hopefully a good
show after that.
Speaker 2: That is amazing and I completely get. It's kind of
like what this screen screen is behind me? You ask
why the green screen. There's no distractions for me, and
I can look into the black hole. I can look
into the camera, which I have on my screen positioned
right below your right blow your eyes, so I can
look into the camera. But it looks like I'm looking
at you, but I am actually looking at your eyes. Yeah,
that's the comforting dark hole that broadcasters, I'm sure take
a while to figure out how to use the camera
effectively because it's so hard, especially now with people on
zoom and stuff. They're always looking off to the side. Anyway,
our connection was a strange one on how I got
to you, and it's John.
Speaker 1: Madden, WHOA what a nice thing to hear go on.
Speaker 2: Oh well, a friend of mine recently wrote a book
called Mornings with Madden. I don't know if you know
that John was on Bay Area Radio every morning for thirty.
Speaker 1: Years, K and B R for a long time.
Speaker 2: And before that KSFO with Gene Nelson, Okay, and before
that he was on the RKO Radio network. Charlie Steiner
was head of RKO Radio Sports at the time, Charlie
being you know the Dodgers recently ESPN and I John
Madden's recording engineer, and he and I would talk for
He would record a couple times a week fifteen minutes,
you know, these five minute segments, and then we'd talked
for two hours. And we did this for years, and
he was the single greatest mentor I've ever had in
my life. And I found out when I had my
list of wanting to get you on the show, I
found out that you and John Sharon Agent.
Speaker 1: Wait, Sandy Montag, great Sandy Montag, and you're a blessed
man that had all those experiences with coach I had
a few of those, not anywhere close to the number
that you did. But he loved a good hang So
what you just described is exactly what made John really happy.
Not to be in a hurry to go anywhere, and
to sit around and tell stories. That was kind of
John's way of living.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, special.
Speaker 1: Man, special man. And I did regret deeply when he passed.
Sometimes you do you think, could I have handled that friendship,
that relationship a little bit better? I wish I had
more of it. I wish there was more time. Why
didn't I make this kind of effort here? I had
a home in Pebble Beach, California. I lived there full
time for eleven years. I still lived there part time,
never selling my home. But John was right off of
Ocean Avenue in Carmel. And the reality is fred I
was so in all of them, but he felt a
little intimidated. And John's the last guy in the world
want anyone to feel like he had intimidated you. But
he was just so big in my eyes that I
had I had a few chances to hang out with him,
and as guys of Carmel, Dominic Furman, I still see
these guys from Bruno's Market there in Carmel. Wonderful guy.
Just had a great business with him a few weeks ago.
And John was just such a regular person, but he
had this way of describing things that was next level.
He was a people person, an extraordinary guy. So I'm
glad you found through Sandy this opportunity for us to
be together.
Speaker 2: So after KNBR he went to KCBS right and he
was with the morning guy for the last twenty years
of John doing this was Stan Bunger, who was the
who wrote this book, Mornings with Madden. You should check
it out. It's really it's just stories about John. It's
not a bio at all. And Stan. When I was
in college radio in San Francisco, and I graduated a
couple of years ahead of you, from you know, radio
and TV, I was the morning DJ and Stan was
my morning news guy. So we've been friends ever since.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
Speaker 2: When were you introduced to golf?
Speaker 1: I was introduced to golf probably around the age of four.
Family lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, and they became founding
members of a golf club that was extremely modest. Okay,
I'll tell you how modest it was. It was so
modest that there was a routing for a nine hole
golf course. It's now eighteen called Pine Lake Pine Lake
outside of Charlotte, and the founding members helped build the
golf course. They helped clear it, so there was this routing.
I can still see the first hole and people lined
up single file across the width of the tree lines,
tree lines right and left, and you pushed a wheelbarrow
with you and dumped sticks and stones in the wheelbarrow.
You'll help clear it so they could then come in
with the top soil and then seed it. So I
was just a tag along little boy, little runt, following
his mom and dad. And later, of course, the course
came to life. And that was my introduction to golf
is just really tagging along with my parents clearing a
golf course and later playing it, and I loved it.
My dad played not all the time because he was
a Monday through Friday working man, but on weekends I
used to tag along with him, and I took up
a love for the game that's never left me. And
it's been a joy to be able to kind of
go through the same process of passing that along to
my son. I have three children. My youngest is a boy,
and he's into golf big time, and I'm living the
game vicariously through him and at the same time stirring
a lot of memories of how I got introduced to
the game.
Speaker 2: So do you remember every shot you've ever taken on
a golf course?
Speaker 1: Oh? But shots thread I'm unfortunately I'm putting up good scores,
but some of the better moments in my in my
golfing career, I can remember a lot of things. My
memory is really sharp on names and numbers. It helps
me well, it serves me well for the broadcasting. But
I'm so into watching my son play. He plays competitively
as a junior golfer, and I just love watching. He's
going to be such a good player. In time, He's
going to be outstanding. So it's such a joy to
be able to have have that with him. I have
a little golf hole in my backyard in Pebble Beach
and my home here in Nashville. It's been a two
year work in progress. I have another little teeing area
and a green And it sounds extravagant. It's it's not,
but I guess you could say it is. But I mean,
I worked on it by hand, shape it the way
I wanted it to. I didn't lay down the synthetic turf.
I had great people do that. But my son's just
it's only amplified his love and interest in the game.
And he's in the backyard practicing all the time. Just
told Joy, just that joy of having a club in
your hand and hitting shots and trying all kinds of
different ways to get the ball close.
Speaker 2: So are you just watching or are you coaching him?
Speaker 1: Like coaching, I've been coaching him since he was three.
He's nine, believe it or not. So I have some
leat in life, and I would take the desktop that
I'm on right now and I would put up videos
of Rory as a boy at each different age group
from three on. There are videos out there, you can
find them. And I had when Jamison we call him Jamo,
but when Jamo was three, and I started out with
the video of Rory hitting golf balls into a washing machine.
You've seen that clip absolutely last week off the tee.
Then he run out of the house to go up
to the back to the top of the tee. And
kids are great simulators. They can really their copycatters at
that age and they can easily get their body in
the positions they need to. And I really believe that
was a good way to teach him. And he'd go
up and he would simulate at the same age what
Rory was doing. Alas he's nine now. In his swing now,
granted he's nine, but it looks very similar to Rory's.
And I've told that to Rory a number of times,
and it's a great teaching mechanism. We played yesterday and
I just have worked with him so much. I can
tell when he's fractionally off, whether it's his takeaway or
it's weight shift, whatever it might be coming out of
a shot, and he listens and he grasps it quickly. Wow,
and yeah, I think know he's going to be able
to play the game, hopefully at a collegiate level, maybe
beyond when that day comes. But as sure as fun
sharing with him, I know that.
Speaker 2: I Oh, I bet. And so as a golfer, you
as a golfer, what is the best advice you've ever received?
Speaker 1: Mmm? You know, I I mean as far as teaching
or enjoyment of the game, teaching of the game I
was taught. You know, we're basically the same age fred
I was.
Speaker 2: A little younger than me.
Speaker 1: I grew up an agent. It was all about staying
in control and tempo and having that elegant swing and
and didn't grip it and rip it. And now as
you get older, you know the you wish you were
taught just as swing as hard as you could and
pound it. I've always had a good demeanor on the
golf course. I'm not a club thrower. You don't hear
me curse the sky. I try my best to just
enjoy the fact that I'm out there playing some of
the most beautiful places in the world. I had some
of the most beautiful plays in the world and not
get caught up and score. It took me a long
time to over meeting other people's expectations. The word is out.
And I played collegiately at Houston, which is a bit
of a stretch, to be honest. I was the last
guy on the golf team, and I never really competed
in a varsity tournament, competing in a rushman tournament, and
I was surrounded by very talented players. So people think
I can go out and shoot seventy two, seventy five
every time I play and it's not even close. So
it took me a long time to meet other people's expectations,
or I was quarreling with that. Now, when you get
to be sixty five, you start to realize, you know,
the expectations are lower. I'm older now, It's it's plausible
that I lost my game somewhere along the way. I've
been working so I have not had to feel as
much tension playing and trying to live up to that
University Houston past.
Speaker 2: You know, as we get older, my wife and I
joke about all the time there's a graph of the
X access is your age going up, and the y
axes is give a shit and the older you get
going down.
Speaker 1: I think that you described it better that I can.
That was I think that speaks to me right there, Freddie,
I really do.
Speaker 2: And how's Jamo's mental game?
Speaker 1: He's good, He's mister positive. I mean, he can just
I mean, I love the fact that he fights hard
for every shot and he is you know, he's he's
I mean for nine years old. He hits the ball
a long way. I held him back playing in tournament golf.
I was told this by Butch Harmon. Actually Butcher was
out visiting. We went up to the back of the
range at Pebble and he saw Jmo hit the ball.
When he was four or five years old, Jamo made
a hole in one at the hay at Pebble Beach
around that time. He's still the youngest ever to ever
make one, a legit shot and there oh yeah, there
were witnesses.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, God, I'm a proud papa moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was all good. But I Butch said, don't
get him too competitive too early. There can be a
he thinks there's a burnout factor. He says, wait till
he's eight or nine. Well, I've waited till he was
late eight in the fall of twenty four and I
entered him in his first tournament, individual tournament, it says
out here in Tennessee, it's called the Snetecker Tour. Brand's
name is on it, and Brandt Snedecker is just a
great guy, tennesseean And Jamo was playing an eight nine
ten age group and it was just a little after
school nine whole tournament, like twenty five kids. But they
played it, you know, a par thirty six golf course
like from the ladies. He's eight, nine, ten, and the
first time out he won, he won by four shots.
He shot four over his first time he went out.
To have to play competitively, everything has to be hold.
He can't touch the ball, play as it lies. And
I just thought, wow, you know, that was a great
way to start. He hasn't won every tournament. He's won
several tournaments, but he's playing up. He's playing against older boys,
and the kids are all so great and they root
for each other. And he gets back to the summer.
We spent our summers there in Pebble Beach, and he's
got a pack of kids who are all excellent Division
I prospects that are fourteen fifteen sixteen who play in
the more than cal the n C g A A
j g A, you know that, that Great American Tour.
And they love Jmo tagging along and it's really improved
his game playing with older boys and girls who are
outstanding players. So I'm loving it. I've never loved the
game more than I do right now today. I really
because of my son. He's just he's stoked up of
whatever a fire inside of me to enjoy the game
even more. I love where the professional game is right now. Uh,
and it's been. It's been. It's been just blessed, really has.
Speaker 2: It's amazing that he won his first tournament, and it's
probably really good that he doesn't win everyone. He's got
to learn that about.
Speaker 1: Got to I mean you you you have to go
through you know what it takes to win, and a
lot of that is you also have to learn how
to handle defeat. And uh, that's a life lesson. I'll
give you his first swing in This was a father
son tournament, so that didn't count as an individual tournament.
He was six years old. I trust this can come out.
Speaker 2: Oh shoot, because of the blur. Oh look at that.
Speaker 1: That was six. You know that was his first shot
playing with me, and you know he just he can
he can, he can play.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you for sharing. Yeah for those listening to
the podcast, sorry Jim on his phone all swing, but
can check out YouTube. We'll put this on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Enjoy it. I'm not trying to put crazy expectations on
his shoulder. He's way too young.
Speaker 2: Okay, you brought it up. You mentioned Rory, and I
want to bring it to this year's Masters, which I
have to say, the first one I ever got to
go to. I was there Wednesday and Thursday as a
guest of Charlie Yates Junior.
Speaker 1: Nice yeah, Royalty Royalty at the rest of National Golf Club.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, absolutely amazing, and had lunch with them
in the Founder's dining hall on Thursday and it was,
you know, the trophy room, amazing, amazing. But it's fun. Now. God,
there's so many things I want to talk about that
you were working. I mean, I've been around broadcasting, I've
been around sports broadcasting. You're working when you're at the Masters.
Do you ever get to what blew me away?
Speaker 1: Is?
Speaker 2: Meeting under the tree right inside by the umbrellas. That
the industry, that's their meeting place. That's the golf industry
meeting place. Unlike the PGA Show, which is a retail thing,
this is golf. Do you ever get to enjoy that?
Or you working the whole time? You're there every year?
Speaker 1: But I enjoy every minute of it. There's a lot
going on, There's a lot of people to catch up
to when you start on let's say Wednesday. I have
some rituals there that i've This was my fortieth Master,
so there are certain things that I do every year.
In that case, on Wednesdays, I always want to part three.
Tournament commences, I go down to Amen Corner and have
my own little kind of moment, seance, ritual, prayerful, introspection,
whatever you want to call it. Walk over Hogan Bridge,
walk around the twelfth Green, give thanks for having the
opportunity to be back again. I go up to the
thirteenth t just kind of take it all in, breathe
it in, look at it, walk across the Nelson Bridge,
and go back to work. Now whatever you call it work,
I mean it's joy for me. But Thursday morning under
the Big Tree, when they come out with the honorary starters,
that's an amazing time, amazing, amazing time. That's one of
my favorite moments of the year. If you call it
a sporting event, that might be. My favorite sporting event
is the Masters, but specifically even seeing Jack Gary and
Tom Watson, as the case was this year, hit that
first shot. It's just like watching your life go by.
It's a checkpoint. But I'd watched that from under the
Big Tree. And you run into people in the industry,
at the golf industry, you run into leaders in the
golf space. They're all there and and so a lot
of meet and greet, of old friendships being renewed. It's
a season of renewal, as you know. And then the
next thing you know, you've got commitments. You've got inserts
into CBS this morning, You've got the cable show on
Thursday and Friday. You've got open pieces to write and
to voice. You have now this year, with the addition
of five extra hours on the weekend, including on streaming,
we were on from twelve till seven Eastern time both days.
It felt like an hour each day. Seven hour Sunday
was a little longer than seven hours. It's a blur.
I'm into the Masters tournament so much. Every shot. I
can't see every shot, but I have a pretty good
idea of what's happening out there for virtually every player
in the field. I have a scoring tablet in front
of me, and I'm constantly hitting refresh, and I'm seeing.
If you said to me, hey, where is name a player,
Where's Rory on the golf course? Right now? I can
tell you he's through eight holes, He's prety both the
par fives, and he bogeye the fifth. I just have
it in my head, but that goes beyond the stars
of the game. You could say, how jose Marie is
still playing at the tournament. How's he doing? Hey, surprisingly,
he's doing great. He's you know, he's got a chance
to make the cut. He birdy nine to get back
to three over par. He's down at Amen corner right now.
I just have a catalog it. I'm following it constantly
from Thursday when the first shot is struck until Sunday
night when the last put is hold. I'm like a
computer in my own head following where everyone is on
the course. And I love it.
Speaker 2: And you've got a producer in your ear probably the
entire time as well, don't you.
Speaker 1: Other's that producer has more things to do than just
have a running dialogue with me. He's got a lot
of things.
Speaker 2: He's got a lot of cameras going at once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the director's cutting the cameras. But
the producers really concerned with the general flow of the
show and where to go to next. And you get
cues right fifteen, let's go to sixteen. He's telling you
where to go. But and we have a great producer
and seller Shy and an extraordinary director too, and Steve Milton.
They make movies. Master's Tournament is not like covering a
sporting event anymore sporting of them. It would be covering
a football or a basketball game like a lot of
people do. But when it comes to like the Master's Tournament,
with the drone shots and all the different camera angles,
the beauty, it is totally cinematic. That's the word. The
little Augusta melody, the little undercurrent that's playing there. It's
not a sporting event, is it is. It's a movie.
It is cinematic.
Speaker 2: And how detailed are the cues that you're getting Rory
on fifteen or is there more?
Speaker 1: Usually just it's just a whole change. Okay, twelve, let's
put it twelve. Yeah, let's go to fifteen. I mean,
he's got so many balls in the air. He's juggling
go next. He's usually working five or six shots ahead,
trying to time it out. He's not providing running commentary.
He's he's he's watching while one players on the air.
He's at fifteen. You know, he's looking at Xander at seventeen.
At the same time he's seeing Bryce and about the
second shot at eighteen. He's trying to time all this
to cut from here to there and tell the director
we're going to go to seventeen next and after that
eighteen is coming up. So that's those are things I
don't hear. It would be a distraction. All I hear
is let's go to seventeen or not even let's go
it's just seventeen eighteen twelve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, And you write your own copy.
Speaker 1: I don't write any I mean, you're talking about the
opening to the Master's Tournament.
Speaker 2: Well, no, that's probably a team who dies that.
Speaker 1: That's the only part that really is scripted would be
those those big montages and orchestrations that open the Master's tournament.
And this year it was done well in advance of
the Master's Tournament. It was done a month in advance.
Take a lot of pride and laying a voice down
to that. But I the rest of what you're doing
on the air is it's just you. You see it.
You're you're you're an observer and you tell people what
you see, and it's extemporaneous speaking. You don't script anything.
Speaker 2: Do you realize how good your voice is for audio?
I mean, when did it, Brank? I mean, when you
were a kid and your voice started breaking and stuff.
And now you're playing golf in college and like you're
probably doing play by play of guys hitting balls when
you're playing in school. When did you know? It's like
because I knew early on in my broadcasting career I
did not have a good voice. For right you talk
about friend, I have the intonation, but I don't know
if I have the voice. But your voice is it's
just silk and it and it lends so well to
the cinema of the masters.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. Well. First off, all I ever
knew about my voice is my voice sounded like my
dad's voice, which I was very honored. What people would
call the house back in the days when you had
landline phones at home. I even know even what a
cell phone would be. And you'd answer the phone. People
would say, you know, Jim, and I was named after
my father. It was Jim. I was actually Jimmy growing
up because my dad was Jim. So, yes, Hi, how
are you there's this big Jim a little Jim. We
sounded exactly alike to people, and I was honored at
carry my father's voice. I never thought it was any
big deal. I just thought it was special. Because I
knew that I sounded like my father. So it was
not any classical training. It was just the fact that
the Good Lord ran that voice through my dad onto me.
And I still don't even think it's anything special. It's
just the voice that I've been given. And listen, I
have forty years of experience of knowing how to pitch
my voice on a broadcast, thing happens that's big, or
even the other side of it, how to drop a voice.
But I don't think it's any big deal.
Speaker 2: But saying that, well fine, you think that, Yeah, it's
it's funny your voice sounding like your dad. Remember in
early days of cell phones when you'd talk and they
were just you'd hear the voice repeated right. Well, my
older son everyone could when he was growing up. People
still think that we have the same voice. It was like, wow,
you sound a lot like your dad. So one time
he was calling his phone rang, He picked it up
and he goes hello, and he goes hello, He goes
who is this? Who is this? Come on, dad, Come
on dad. He realized that he thought he was talking
to me and that I was messing with him, But
it was just his own voice repeating it sounds and
you thought it was me.
Speaker 1: Well, my dad was a big believer, so was my mom.
And my crazy little childhood dream that I had as
a young boy, I wanted to work for CBS since
I was I was well, let's call it at the
absolute latest, let's call it eleven years old. But CBS
broadcasts the Masters and those voices of yesteryear, the voices
of my youth. It wasn't that they were on television.
It was that they were telling me stories and they
were educating me. And I was mesmerized by those voices
and I wanted to be one of those voices because
they did. It impacted me, It moved me, They informed me,
educated me, they brought the world to me. And I
had this crazy idea that I wanted to work specifically
for CBS. And I also loved by the way the
way the CBS broadcasts the NFL.
Speaker 2: They didn't have.
Speaker 1: College basketball back in those days, which would be a
big part of my career. I'm grateful for having called
thirty two Final four and national championships, but they had
the NFL, they had golf, and I just thought, I
want to work for CBS. I want to work for CBS.
I went to college saying, I got to figure out
a way to get to CBS. I got to figure
it out. When our legendary golf coach made us stand
up and introduce ourselves to the fellow freshman, he said,
just stand up, tell us your name, tell us what
you want to do with your life. And I stood
first at his beckoning, and I said, I'm Jim Nansen.
I want to work for CBS one day. I want
to broadcast the NFL and I want to broadcast the
Master's Tournament. And I sat down. That was what I said.
That's what I declared day one of college. And I
can't begin to tell you how much appreciation I have
in my heart that that's all come true. And I've
been there a long time. I mean, whenever that last
day is hopefully many many years down the line, it's
going to be hard for me because I've been live
in that dream. It was a dream and it became
a reality, but it's still a dream. I mean, I'm
not ready. I'm not even close to ready being ready
to let go of that dream. It's much a part
of me, and it's important to me. Is is oxygen.
It's just breathing life into that dream. So I've been
very fortunate. I take none of it for granted. I'm grateful, grateful, grateful.
Every day I give thanks for having a chance to
live the dream. I really do.
Speaker 2: Let's take it to Sunday this year, Rory's final day.
You talk about the movie that's created by the Masters.
Here you have the final pairing of Rory and Bryson.
I mean, you couldn't have scripted that any.
Speaker 1: Better, not scripted any better.
Speaker 2: And then the way it, the flow of it. I
don't know if you can recognize, but from a viewer's perspective,
Sunday at the Master's twenty twenty five may have been
the greatest sports television ever broadcast.
Speaker 1: I agree with that statement right there, in terms of
creating tension, suspense, drama, the ups and downs of it,
the matchup that you have. Look, Bryson's enormously popular, He's resurrected.
He has me through his YouTube videos and all that.
My son loves watching Bryson and all these videos trying
to break fifty. He's into it, he loves it. And
I've known bryceon well since he was a college student
and came to my home at Pebble Beach to pick
my brain as an amateur playing in the first Masters.
He he he wrote and asked if he could have
an audience, and whatever said absolutely, Let's meet in my
house on January the sixteenth, and he showed up and
stayed for a long time. He walked away and said,
you know, I'm I'm just trying to find a shot
here and there. And I said, I really think that,
you know, there's maybe there's a chance that by asking
you these questions about Sarahcen and Steed and all these
people you've met along the way, that maybe it's worth
a shot. And I've wanted to get to know you.
I mean, I couldn't help but love the kid right away. Sure.
And then you know Rory the way he has stood
up for the game. Yeah, you had that kind of
interesting little subplot. You had Rory, who's had to be
kind of the spokesman for the PGA tour, and Bryson,
who's probably the most popular live player. You had that
little subplot in there too. You got two guys who
were bashers who can absolutely obliterate a golf ball.
Speaker 2: It was Batman and the Joker. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you have the carryover from Pinehurst.
Speaker 2: Right when previous major.
Speaker 1: I mean, and then you've got Rory going for this
epic career achievement that it felt like there was gonna
be a Greek tragedy here in the end, there was
gonna be some way that he was gonna be denied it.
And all of this coming together. Then you start out
the day with Rice and grabbing the lead after two
holes and Rory stumbling I mean by a yard on
each of his first two t shots, failing to clear
a bunker. It was that close. It was like that close,
and had he I don't know, he says it really
helped him cal him down. But to go double bogey
par on those first two holes, these three shots behind
where he should be. Yeah, and then the ride that
Rory took us on the ups and downs. He's got it,
he can't lose it now. And then he hits the
third shot, the pitch into the thirteenth green. I mean,
who's ever seen in a moment like that forget missed
short putts talking about shots into a green. It's one
of the biggest misses of all time in the history
of the game. I mean, it just can't it can't happen.
It just blew your mind, just like missing the green
at the seventy second with a wedgind hand anywhere on
the green. Two putts done, It's done, It's over. I've
never been on such a wild rune. I was exhausted.
I mean I had other people tell me this. It
flat out exhausted. And I'm not sure that here we
are talking today, nine days later, I'm not sure. And
I've been to Hilton Head for another riveting tournament, by
the way, that had its own long journey back to
a super ending with JT. But I'm not sure I'm
over the Masters yet. I'm really not sure i am.
It was that big. It was so powerful.
Speaker 2: It was the emotion that he shared, the vulnerability that
he shared. I have not spoken to a person yet
that didn't react the same way that they started crying to.
Speaker 1: I tried to, well, we had a long stretch where
no one needs to tell us otherwise your instincts take over.
There's nothing you can say after he's holed out other
than for a brief moment to recognize what a gentleman
Justin Rose is and give him his due, but then
layout until it feels like it's an appropriate time to
reinsert yourself has died down enough. And it was I
think seven minutes of just amazing up close with Rory
and beautifully framed by our production team. But one of
the first things I said was, what you just witnessed
on that eighteen green was as real and authentic a
reaction as anything you'll ever see. There was no punching
in the air, as if I'm not saying other people have,
but there was no pre planned reaction shot. I'm not
again accusing anybody who ever done that. He just collapsed.
Weight had just been so immense for so long, and
he let us in of how much not only did
it mean to him, but what a burden he had
been carrying all this time. It was just as real
as anything you'll ever see. And I tried to identify
that right on the spot.
Speaker 2: There've already been articles. Is like Nance didn't say anything
for four minutes. It's like he probably is caught up
in the moment.
Speaker 1: If I tried to say something over that, Fred, you
can only sully one of the great scenes that sport
would ever deliver any sport, like trying to talk over
the crowd, channing his name and hearing the reaction when
he's hugging Shane Lowry or any number of people that
were in that human tunnel on the way from the
green to scoring again, that's just it's the right play.
There is no other play there. I wouldn't even think
about trying to jump in the middle of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good for you. That's skills. And I can't imagine
what the production team was going through in that last hour,
the energy, the buzz, the excitement did Everyone's probably slapping
high fives, looking at each other with their eyes bugging
out of their head.
Speaker 1: Well, when Rory missed the putt on the seventy hole
and you know, tapped it in for a bogie and
now we're heading to a playoff, all you can do
is wonder, you've just seen a pretty big meltdown at
thirteen and eighteen. By the way, in the middle of that,
it was one of the greatest shots of not the
greatest shot of his life into fifteen, that swooping seven
iron that barely cleared and hopped up there to within
about five feet of the hole. Only then and have
him miss it. Had he made that putt, tournament's probably over. Yeah,
came over, he's got two shot lead with three to play.
But it was, you know, it was just trying to
wrap your mind around the fact that Rosie has just
beat him by seven shots in regulation. He's on a roll.
Rory could have been almost inconsolable at that point, but
he's got to reinvent himself, reboot and go back out
and play for the Green jacket. And thankfully Harry Diamond
said to him, Hey, on Monday, if someone would have
told you you get to go play one hole in
a playoff for the Green jacket, you would have taken it.
And even Rory said that clicked in and got him
in a better frame of mind. What did he do?
Striped the t shot, Rosie went first, hit a remarkable
second shot in there, and then Rory, I mean, wasn't
going to hit it right this time too? That bunker
and here it comes off the slope. I mean it
was you said it. I mean, what's better? I've seen
forty masters. I walked into my very first year Jack
Nicholas's historic six green jacket. Can't be better than that,
can it. I mean, I know there's recency bias, so
that's pretty special. Then you had the Tiger two most
high profile of his five wins, ninety seven and twenty nineteen,
a win for the ages, the return to glory, whatever
those were, particularly the last one unexpected and that was
competitively tight and kind of got settled down at the
twelve hole down at Amen Corner. But there's so many
twists and turns to this one. Is there anything ever
better than this? Or is this just recency bias?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think it's way up there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely way up there. It might be it's
top four for me in my okay, in my forty years.
If I had seventy five, which was another Nicholas win
and Jack's fifth as he battled to the wire with
Wiscoffin Miller, that that would have been up there too.
But I'm just saying my forty year window from eighty
six on, it's top four, most compelling, exciting. It probably
is the most compelling.
Speaker 2: Right for golfers and non golfers.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's just it was great. Seven win was so historical.
There was not a competitiveness to it. You know, he
won by twelve shots, so it was classical storytelling and
a massively important event that transcended the sport, really, but
it was such a thrill to be there. It's funny
April thirteenth if you're a numerologist, that was the Sunday
this year April to thirteenth has produced the best Masters.
It really has Jack and seventy five, Jack in eighty six,
Tiger in ninety seven, I believe, Tiger in twenty nineteen,
and Rory in twenty twenty five. April the thirteenth is
the Sunday of all Sunday dates. As you know, the
Masters ends barring weather, on the second Sunday in April,
so it's going to be either in April eighth, ninth, tenth, eleven, twelve, thirteenth,
or fourteenth. But April the thirteenth is the trigger date
of the greatest Masters ever played.
Speaker 2: But we don't want to look at the calendar for
the future April thirteenth and circle it, going, Oh, this
is going to.
Speaker 1: Be fun next time, I'll be ready for it. I
should have said it on the air, I always know,
kind of back on my mind, my Boyfredd. A couple's
won on an April the twelfth, which was very special.
In nineteen ninety two, Sevy had an April thirteenth win.
These are the kinds of things that are circling in
my head, Fred, that I can never let go for
whatever reason, all things masters. I have devoured the history books,
the record books. I just love it.
Speaker 2: Man, it is You're part of it.
Speaker 1: Well, it's just the greatest event.
Speaker 2: And has there been a sporting event that you called
that you got emotional about that you felt like, I'm
just not going to talk as I can't right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do this very event that we just watched really? Oh?
During that walk? Yeah, I mean I was definitely choked
up and I even had a hint of it in
but butler cabin when I asked him about his parents.
I wasn't trying to make him cry, but just coming
from someone that will forever cherish the fact that I
had two loving parents who nurtured and you know, my
dream believed in me. I'm always a sucker for the
family story. It's just the way I'm wired. I will
tell you I battled the allergies that week at Augusta,
and a lot of people did, but it was really
heavily in my voice. And we have a you know,
ninety nine percent of what you're doing is not on camera,
so you have an ability to cut your mic and
it's called a cough cough but I could barely get
two sentences together without having to hit the cough switch. Oh.
Then sometimes it could be a coughing fit that could
go on for thirty seconds before I could have my
voice back to be able to pick up the moment.
And I went into Sunday with that epic matchup between
Rory and Bryson. Is this the day all of that,
really fretting over whether or not I could do Butler
Cabins screen jacket ceremony, because if I had one of
those coughing attacks, you can't stop it.
Speaker 2: No cough switch there, There.
Speaker 1: Was no cough switch, and there's nowhere to hide you're
on camera. So we had a backup plan. I'm actually
giving you a little bit of news here, not that
it's earth shattering, but we had a backup plan, and
Trevor was just off camera, ready to jump in there
in jacket and tie if I had to get up
and walk out of it. So, for whatever reason, I
felt strong that day with my voice. Saturday was a
disaster in terms of trying to deliver clean lines without
hitting the cough switch and overnight Saturday was tough. I
couldn't sleep. The tickle of my voice from the pollen
was just overtaking me. So I said, we've got to
have a plan here. We can't ask anybody else to
take us off the air. The champion can't say, you know,
that's a good night from Augusta, Georgia. It needs to
be somebody from CBS. So with about thirty minutes to go,
Seller said, do you think you can do this? And
I said, I think I actually think I can't. I'm
going to talk a little slower than I normally do
and just basically deliver a line, kind of clear my
voice a little bit and resume and I got through it.
And a lot of people thought they heard a ton
of emotion in my voice. A lot of that was
just trying to fight back the allergies. We're here in
Butler cabin, you know, kind of swallow and clear your throat,
Chairman Ridley, what a tournament was? And I got through
that without an issue, Thank goodness, Thank the Lord. The
second I signed off, I went into a coughing fit
that lasted about a minute. But I can't time these things.
Speaker 2: We just kind of talked about your top four Masters.
When I ask you for the top four events sports
events that you've called, is it just the Masters or
do you have some other moments that will hit that
top four.
Speaker 1: Most meaningful moment of my career was when Fred Couples
won the Masters in nineteen ninety two. As you know,
we went to Houston together. We shared a four person
suite for two of those years. Fred left after our
junior year. We roomed with Blaine McAllister, five time Tour
winner John Horn, who was a two year player on
the tour back in the late eighties, and we all
were very close and we still are, all of us.
And to see someone realize their dream and openly talk
about during your college years, how he wants to win
the Masters, how I want to be there to broadcast
the Masters, and then for us to actually play out,
and you're now interviewing him in Butler Cabin, very deeply personal.
That's my favorite sporting event of all time for me.
But on my short list, I would have to put
some you know, I'd have to put at least one
Super Bowl in there, called seven of them, and at
least one National Championship game in college basketball, because all
of these three parties have been a big part of
my life. Probably the super Bowl, here we go, there
you go, it's almost left the building.
Speaker 2: Paulin has arrived two weeks.
Speaker 1: But the forty nine Ers Kansas City super Bowl just
a year and a half ago that went overtime, was
an amazing game to call. Really proud of that show
with Tony Romo, that would have to be right up there.
Speaker 2: I was watching that game from a cattle auction house
in Costa Rica. We had put together a group from
my wife's her seventieth birthday, and we went with twelve
friends for a two week trip to Costa Rica. And
it's like, but wait a minute, the Niners are in
the super Bowl and we're from San Francisco. It's like
our teens in the super Bowl. So we went to
this bar that was a cattle auction So it was
painful for us.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you saw it. It was the most
show in the history of television and such an honor
to call it. San Francisco went down and overtime kicked
the field goal, and then the Chiefs marched down had
a chance, of course, to have their own possession and
they want it with a touchdown pass from my home
to Miicale Harbon. Yeah, I know i'd have to. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: And please don't bring up Kirk Gibson home run either,
all right, I mean, come on, beat me up here.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry the Giant fan, you get.
Speaker 2: An ACE fan. I was an A's fan at the time.
Speaker 1: It was only nineteen eighty eight. Yes, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2: God. You talk about the pacing, and the pacing you're
having during an allergy attack is one thing, but you're
pacing for golf is obviously going to be very different
than the National chanceampionship in basketball. Do you prefer one
over the other as far as your pace.
Speaker 1: I just think that the golf is at more of
a conversational pace, kind of how we're talking right now.
So that's more like just being normal than the excitability
that comes it's not. I mean, I love the energy
that's in a football call or a basketball call, but
it's up and down and you're talking at a pace
that the game is delivering. It's quick, very different, and
I like that. But I do think that there's a
bigger challenge in trying to make the most out of
a small window in golf until you get to the
end where everything's on the eighteenth hole where you're residing.
There's a lot of ping ponging and back and forth. Yeah,
here's Scheffler for Bertie at twelve. He's six hundred for
the day, moves within two over to fourteen. You know,
that's just pure recalling. That is not the art of
storytelling where you can insert a story about the people
that the subjects that you're covering. But I do enjoy
the challenge of trying to keep it fresh and golf.
Tiger was a problem. And I say that because he
won so often. He won fifty seven of his eighty
two wins on CBS, fifty seven of eighty two nine
of his fifteen majors were on our air. That's fifty
seven times I walked him up eighteen A great many
of them. He was winning in runaway victories. How do
you keep it fresh? How do you say something he
didn't say two weeks or three weeks ago, or for
the last five weeks or whatever, that's a new fresh
twist on Tiger and his greatness. So it was challenging.
It wasn't easy if you really want to be good
and keep your audience informed and tell them new things,
have a new way of space. You know, he created
a great challenge because of just his dominance.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean there was no competitive storyline, you know
like we had with with Rory and Bryce. And when
he's running away with it, where do you go? I mean,
like when you watch an NBA game and it's a blowout,
or even a baseball game and it's a blowout, you
can tell when the announcers are like freaking out because
they got to come up with random stories.
Speaker 1: It is harder to do.
Speaker 2: It makes it so much harder.
Speaker 1: Blowouts are hard to do. Football games that are blowouts.
Speaker 2: Not easy to do. But the pacing of golf like
like like the pacing of baseball, although baseball pacing changed
with the shot the pitch clock. You know, I would
think that Vince Gully would have been really had a
difficult time with the pitch clock because of his pacing
and his storytelling, and baseball and golf probably lead to
storytelling better than any other sports.
Speaker 1: I agree, one hundred percent. I think they're very similar,
and that they what they give you, the forum they
give you to show off your skill set.
Speaker 2: I agree, Yeah, yeah, hard thing to do.
Speaker 1: By the way, we had at Hilton Head on Sunday.
Our opening teas was narrated by Vin Scully and it
was so clever. A young production team that put it together.
They lifted Vin's teas copy and voice wasn't Ai, but
it was from a te's from forty years ago. Vin
was the CBS golf anchor, I want to say until
nineteen maybe eighty three somewhere around there, so at least
forty years ago, and they took his copy and his
voice and they used it over our opening to the
Sunday at the RBC Heritage. Very cool. I love. I
played golf of Vin Scully a few times l Air
Country Club. It was a lefty really yeah, I had
great regard for Vin. Back when you walk to the
clubhouse now at at bel Air, it's one of the
first pictures on the wall there as the two us
walking off and caps in the air and looking up
at somebody who took the picture from the swinging bridge
looking down. So extremely honored to be in that photo
with mister Scully.
Speaker 2: Yep, mister Scully. I had a chance to meet him
as well, crazily at my brother's bachelor party. He was
there because Rick Monday was friend of my brother and
his bost friend. And Rick said, Vinnie, I'm going to
a bachelor party. You want to come? Yeah? Sure? There
I am sitting across the table from Vince Scully like, okay, fine,
what did you say to Fred Couples this week? This
past week at the Masters after he made that hole
on he holed out from sixteen with a hybrid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fourteen, yeah, fourteen fourteen, No, six right, didn't get
to talk to him after ohund he also hold a
put from off the won that day, then to hold
the second shot at fourteen. But I do know that
he was extremely disappointed that he didn't make the cut.
He was about to advance his own record of the
oldest to ever make the cut. He made it two
years ago at sixty three. He was ready to take
it to sixty five and a half and it just
got away from him. The last six holes, I think
it was three over, and I know he was just
extremely upset about that. But he'll be back and don't
put it past him to make the cut a few
more times before it's all said and done. He lives
for that tournament. I know exactly since the first day
I met him, how much it means and what he's feeling.
I think we're wired the same in many ways. And
one thing that I know we are wired in identical
fashion is that our year. Our year is measured on
a Master's calendar, not the normal Jan one through December
thirty one calendar. Day one of my year is the
Monday after the Masters. So we're talking right now, basically
on day nine, because three sixty five is the Sunday
of the Masters. All roads lead up to that weekend
and that event. In my mind, that's how I look
at the year.
Speaker 2: That's the end of your year.
Speaker 1: That's the end of my year. I'm building up to
that all year long. Wow, So I'm nine days closer
to the Masters Sunday now.
Speaker 2: And for everybody else that's the beginning of the year.
It's like, okay, now we can all go play golf.
Speaker 1: Right. It's amazing how it's become so much a symbol
of the passage of the season and the oncoming of spring.
It used to be the baseball season starting right and
all of that. I really do think the Masters has
become that that symbol of spring is in the air
for everybody, even non golfers. No, I got to tell
you one story that I got to mention it a
few times on the air. I'm going to cuse something
up here for you. But okay, after the twenty four Masters,
I made a vow to myself. I'm going to find
Dave Loggins, the writer, creator of the Augusta Melody, wherever
he is. I'm going to find him and thank him
for that cut of music because it really I feel
kind of my voice conforms with that music and that melody.
If someone had to write a piece of music that
would kind of fit with my voice, I feel like
that no one could come up with anything better than
the Augusta Melody.
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree with you more. And may I press
this button right here?
Speaker 1: Is that real? Or is it just playing like it
always does?
Speaker 2: No, I'm playing that for you, my friend.
Speaker 1: That's something.
Speaker 2: We both have it queued up, ready to go.
Speaker 1: I hear it all the time. So I'm a guy
that has a to do list, and I'm a doer.
People say that know me that I'm a busside balance
a lot of different things. I have businesses I have
and of course I have being a dad. The greatest
gift of all. But I have an Alzheimer's Center in
Houston that's named after my father that we created and
founded and that I think it might be the greatest
top five anyway research institute in the world for Alzheimer's.
Got a wine business, I've got a lot of things going.
I got my own job going.
Speaker 2: And thank you for at the center.
Speaker 1: Thank you. It's such a positive, glorious thing in my
life where good things are happening and finally getting progress
and what has been pretty difficult world to crack the code,
so to speak. So anyway, I had Dave Logains on
my checklist to call and thank him, just make an introduction.
I happened to be at the Scottish Open in July
last summer when I get word that Dave Loggains had
passed away, and I was so sad in to hear
of the news and so down on myself for not
ever closing the loop. Then I read all the tributes
and o bits and come to find out he lives
right down the road from me in Nashville. It was
right here. Could have easily met him for lunch. It
would have meant the world to me. Ye, So before
the Masters. I got a phone number for one of
his sons. He has three boys and Kyle. I called
Kyle and made an introduction and just told him how
much I think about his dad, And then I was
going to have his dad front of mine this year
at the Master's Tournament. I wanted him to know that
I asked him to tell me a little bit about
his dad. He was a prolific writer and you know,
songwriter and performer. He never could have imagined that that
song would be something that I would outlive him. And
it's gonna outlive him forever. I mean, I think until
the end of time that that song will always be
a part of the Master's Tournament. It better be it
better be right. And anyway, he told me a sweet
story that on Master Sunday he watched every minute of
it with his three sons. That was a family tradition,
and he gets such a thrill every time it came on.
And occasionally I would make allusions to Dave Loggins and
the lyrics to this start out with the springtime in
the Valley on Magnolia Lane. It's the Augusta National and
the Masters of the Game, and there's a there's a
a portion of the lyrics there that plays over and
over again, Augusta, your dogwoods and pines. They play on
my mind like a song. So I said something on
Saturday's opening, and then I mentioned him on Sunday, and
you know, I could have done ten minutes on it,
but there's a live golf tournament to cover.
Speaker 2: Oh by the way, Yeah, by the way, I.
Speaker 1: Thought of Dave Logans so much this year. Every time
that melody played, I tried to somehow bring him in.
And people are really curious about that song when they
hear it. Now it's become the longest running sports theme
in television history. Sure you know there's other major.
Speaker 2: From Monday Night Football theme changes seems to change.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean there were some years where it's continuous.
Now they still do that. Now it's back now. There
was some years where they didn't have that recognizable and
that started in seventy one. This started in eighty one,
but it's been continuous and it was just a great
part of it all means.
Speaker 2: A ton to me, and an event like any other,
unlike any other, unlike any other, unlike any other that
just roll off your tongue or was that a team decision.
Where did that come from?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a collaboration. Came out in eighty six.
I was shooting some promos with a great guy named
Doug Toohey's passed on. He was our creative producer. I
give Doug credit for that one, I really do. He
was an amazing man and I was just a young pup.
Frank Chirkinnyan had brought me down to shoot some promos
and advance of my first Master's Tournament. And that's the
first place that I ever uttered a tradition unlike any
other the Masters on CBS. On those promos, I know,
I've been given the chance to popularize it or people
have heard it leave my lips so many times. Really
honored by that line. Again, I think that's another one
that will live forever, you know. I think it's part
of the whatever, the majesty of the Master's Tournament. But
I give Doug Towey credit for that and his amazing
vision of things that he did. He's the same guy
that came up with the song that closes out every
national championship game, one Shining Moment and the college football
theme on CBS. And there are things that are still
around that that Doug came up with. He was a
wonderful man, a brilliant, brilliant guy.
Speaker 2: Part of the cinematic majesty it is is yeah, yeah,
So when you were in college with Fred Couples, your roommates,
and he's like, I'm going to win the Masters, and
you're like, I'm going to be on CBS and your
friends are going here, drink this and shut up right.
I mean, can you take yourself back there and go,
oh my god, you guys we did it.
Speaker 1: A lot of times. I take myself back there, but
I'm thankful for the fact that we never got belittled
for it. Really, you were a band of believers. You know,
the world is a lot snarkier. I guess you could say, now,
oh yeah, you know where there's not It's not just doubt,
it's our second guessing. It's just it's just ridicule, and
it's it's part of a sense of humor. It's like,
it's just the way that the world has evolved. There
was a lot less of that cynicism when you know,
I showed up at school in the late seventies and
if you said that you really wanted one day you
hope to work for CBS. They didn't laugh you under
the table, they didn't make fun of you or friend
said he's going to win the Masters. Yeah, and I'm
going to the moon. It wasn't like that. It was
it was total support. I do believe we were able
to siphon off of each other a lot of extremely
high level positive energy. I think that we I think
that we. I think we really both benefited from having
such big dreams and the fact that everybody made you
feel like that was going to happen. And I think
that holds true for Blaine. I mentioned Blaine. I love
Blaine McAllister special special friend, always will be in one
of my amigos, as close as I can be to
any friends in those roommates of mine are there. It's
still all these years later, we're brothers and John Horne.
But I do think that it helped me get to
where I wanted. I know I can speak, you know
for what the impact was. In my case. My guys
really believed I was gonna work for CBS one day.
And it was not a sense of entitlement. It was
not hey, get out of the way, this is this
is this is going to happen. It was no sense
of entitlement whatsoever. But when you are emboldened by people
that look at you and believe in you. I got
that feedback from my parents since I was a little boy.
You go to college and you get that same kind
of positive feedback and they're getting it in return. You're
going to be broadcasting the Masters one day, and you're
going to win it. Guess what good things happen. We
lifted each other on our shoulders and we graduated from college.
Fred left a year early. But you felt like you're
ready to go out there and take on the world
and go figure out a way to get what it
is that you want. And I was obsessive about the
idea of working for CPS. No, that's not a good
word strong and being obsessive is It has a lot
of negativity.
Speaker 2: Sound to it, But not in this context.
Speaker 1: Not in this context. I was all in on it.
I took every opportunity that came my way to try
to get experience and strengthen my career and get better
at my craft, because all of it was about one
day hopefully being discovered by CBS. I'm just out here.
They don't know it yet, but I'm going to work
for them. One day, I'm going to work so hard
that I'm going to figure it out. We were goal
minded individuals. Is the is the point of it all.
And this doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun,
but you know, we really went for our dreams. We
were not partiers. I'm going to tell you that. You know,
we went to one party that I can remember our
entire college careers. We lived together the golf team in
the dorms. We went to a fraternity party. We were
invited one night. It was a night of a Muhammad
Ali Leon Spinks fight. And we got there and people
were drinking beer and they had invited a sorority over.
We're just a bunch of golf geeks and we all
were anxious to make sure we got back to watch
the fight. It was not on Close Circuit. In fact,
it was on CBS. The fight was, and we went in.
We weren't drinkers. We never drank through college, obviously, we
didn't smoke. We were out to be what we got
to school. We got the odds of getting to the
Houston golf program pretty long. Houston won sixteen out of
thirty national championships. We were serious amount our pursuit of goals.
And I can remember we went to this party. We
were there about thirty forty minutes. Didn't seem like a
whole lot of fun, and we said, let's get out
of here, Let's go back to the room and watch
the fight. And that marked the end of our social
life in college. That was it.
Speaker 2: While we're telling that story, newsblurb just popped up on
my kindle, my kindle, my tablet here and it said that, uh,
the U, s g A and the RNA have just
named you the commissioner. So, mister commissioner, what's the first
thing you're going to do when you start? What rules
are you going to change? What are you going to do?
Speaker 1: Who are you gonna ductor Fred? You know, you actually
absolutely had me on a hook.
Speaker 2: I would you were looking at me like, what are
you talking about?
Speaker 1: There's gonna be some sad news there of some sort.
Speaker 2: Of No, I'm just messing with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there's a speed of play is a
big deal with me. And I think as the world
gets faster, and you know, people consume things in abbreviated,
abridged form, golf runs counter to what the way the
world is moving world is getting faster, and golf is
stuck there on a long afternoon of waiting, playing four
or five hours, so it feels like it's an all
day affair for people to get into the game. I
take the welfare of the game, and I don't know
how much you can accelerate it. I don't know that
you can shave an hour off of a round of golf,
but every little bit would help to move it up faster, faster.
I would try to figure out ways of trimming the
amount of time that it takes to play around of golf.
One time Jack Nicholas told me, and I love Jack.
One time Jack said that he could see down the
road the game being switched to twelve holes, where the
golf courses are built as twelve hole golf courses, and
I don't love he still feels that way. That creates
a problem with what's grandfathered in the old courses of
the world. How would you rerout them? Would you reroute
them into three sets of six?
Speaker 2: You know, so you have I've always wondered about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to get back to the clubhouse in some of
these courses at twelve holes.
Speaker 2: A lot of people always complain about the fact that
golf just takes too much time. So instead of nine
to nine, going six, twelve, eighteen, Now you want to
go out for an hour and a half, go out
and you know, play six type of thing is like,
and if.
Speaker 1: You played twelve you could do it. You know, you
can maybe under three hours now.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly. Well, that's what makes golf on television so
great because the pacing of it is perfect and you
can cut to player to player to player. I mean
I came home from the Masters. I came because I
wanted to watch it on TV on Sunday. Yeah, because
I struggle with things happening elsewhere all the time. And
when you're on a golf course at a professional tournam,
it's nothing's happened in front of you. It's all happening
somewhere else.
Speaker 1: You might not be at the right place when the
shot of the tournaments.
Speaker 2: Are right, chances are you're going to hear a loud
scream across the golf course.
Speaker 1: Of course, the roars that Augusta on Sunday are unique
and standalone, but I would love to see the game
move faster. Listen, I've already had my name right in
the middle of all this argument about ame point, and
I haven't said that much about it, but it got
picked up that I said something that was critical of it,
and now I see articles are written saying I'm a
critic of it. I will say this. We were at Hilton,
had this last weekend with all the kids, and we
have a tradition there of playing the annual family putt
putt match. This is big at Pirates Island in Hilton,
had done it for years. Okay, well, I had our
match this year on Saturday and it's on air Day,
so I thought I had left plenty of time. But
it was a beautiful spring day. The course was crowded
or thirty six holes there, and you can't play through,
and you got people that don't know they're supposed to
let you play through because they're not golfers. They don't
understand they're holding you up. But the real hold up
was two groups in front of me. There was somebody
up there that was aim pointing on the golf course
and I thought, now I've seen it all. You know,
people watch, they imitate, they see the pros play, and
they go out and try to do the same thing.
And that pretty much tested my tolerance for slow play,
but at a miniature golf course, and it added an
next extra thirty minutes to the experience.
Speaker 2: Oh, please tell me that at the beginning of that
family event that you looked at everyone said, this is
a family tradition unlike any other.
Speaker 1: They all know that they know all the lines, trust
they know. We had an incredible battle, and yes, our
patience was tested. We came down to the last hole.
My oldest daughter, port Caroline. She held the lead most
of the day. I double the first hole, which I thought.
I tried to find some solace and that Rory had
done the same thing at Augusta. So I made the
declarational this is how Rory started. So we're coming back
and I was fighting all the way through. We got
to the last hole and my sweet Caroline had a
putt from a foot and a half to win by
one and it lipped out, but we declared it co champions.
We did not have a playoff. I had to go
back to work. She knocked it in and I said,
the long journey is over. A masterpiece.
Speaker 2: As you talk about the pace of play and people
are you know, they don't have an entire weekend to
watch golf. Do you think TGL addressed any of it
and and was it a success doing that?
Speaker 1: I do think they did. I think that the chance
to see golf played with a shot clock put some
ideas in people's heads. I do. I think that's actually
one of them, and I think there are a number
of good things that came out of it. I think
that one right there's right at the top of the list.
Speaker 2: Do you think it has some legs to sustain you, Jill?
Speaker 1: I do, I really do. I can't say that I
watched every single match, but I know they were happy
with the audience. They reached the size that they reached,
and I thought the graphics, the holes that they've created
were fascinating to look at and look. All of these
things are really good for exposed the game, introducing the
game to people, the people that don't get it. It's
forward thinking. So I salute I salute the people that
put TGL together. I think they've I think they have
found something that's it's definitely gonna be around next year,
and I think, well beyond, I think it's a good thing. Anything.
All of these initiatives are good. First t you know,
it's been around now since the late nineties, I'm.
Speaker 2: Coaching on first team now, are you yeah, sixty nine
year olds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been all over the country speaking on the
first tees behalf. It's important to me and I hope
to take on a larger role in some capacity sometime
soon because I believe in what the game espouses and
the people can reach and the message it delivers. And yeah,
I think all of these things are good. As the
world does change and again it gets faster and things happen,
you know, you have to learn how to figure out
new ways to be innovative and move with it. And
the shot clock on TGL it didn't hurt. It helps.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about bifurcation.
Speaker 1: I don't see a problem with that really, with there
being a different golf ball for for the.
Speaker 2: Pros, different ball, different rules, yeah than for the rest
of us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't see a problem with that. But there's listen,
there are things, as you know, that are in place
that are going to be kicking in here a couple
of years down the road.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, well listen, I was told to keep you
to twenty five minutes. I'm sorry, We're almost at an
hour and twenty.
Speaker 1: Five twenty five minutes.
Speaker 2: But it has been just so great to talk to you.
You know, I feel like, you know, hey, you're a
you're a broadcasting I came from broadcasting. So we're just
disc jockeys, right, We're just I'm like just another guy
who's been in the business and I couldn't wait to share.
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen, this was a This was a historic podcast
right here for you.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, think about that.
Speaker 2: Oh, I do a lot like why why am I
still doing this? I mean when I started doing it,
there were a couple of golf podcasts. It was a
year and a half before the iPhone came out and
I started doing this.
Speaker 1: Huh, it's amazing what you've accomplished.
Speaker 2: I just it just was I don't know, persistence, No,
I've had I've become as passionate about this as that
I did about my golf game. So I've had a
couple of lucky shots where I was ahead of my time.
And if you ever read that book about Madden, Stanton
talks about how I created something with Madden. Madden used
to do outgoing phone messages for me. He loved to
do this.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Right, and then when famous people would come into the
radio station. I was at KSFO at the time. I
would you know, they would have to come into my
studio and say, Hi, this is the Fifth Dimension and
you know there they did an interview with the dis
jockey to promote promote their upcoming concert. But it was like,
you're listening to Oakland A's baseball on five sixty KSFRO
and I would record them doing that. So I'd say, hey,
I don't collect autographs, but I do collect outgoing phone messages.
Can you do this? Not all these famous people doing it?
And Madden was like, you got to start a business.
That's a great business. You got to do this. And
I'm like, yeah, coach, I don't know how that scales.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: This was way before the internet, let alone CD players,
and he just loved that idea. And forty years later
this thing cameo comes out and Stan Bunger, and Stan
Bunger writes in his books like Fred could have created
It's like, oh my god, I.
Speaker 1: Should Well, I've enjoyed the visit.
Speaker 2: I I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: On earlier We'll talk about that another time, but thanks
thanks for saving me for the thousandth Okay, I'm going
to tell you right now. I'll leave you with this.
I'm in on the two thousandth.
Speaker 2: Okay, wow, that's one of us.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you Bred